


The Scent of Pomegranats

by eurosthewanderer



Series: So I watched the Spanish Princess and lost my mind [4]
Category: The Constant Princess - Philippa Gregory, The Spanish Princess (TV)
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, F/M, Knotting, Loss of Virginity, Mating Bites, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Oral Sex
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-26
Updated: 2020-08-31
Packaged: 2021-01-04 00:37:08
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 2
Words: 19,816
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21188642
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eurosthewanderer/pseuds/eurosthewanderer
Summary: Henry did not know what he had planned when he first wrote to his brother's Omega fiancée.To humiliate Arthur? Of course.To see if she'd send him her handkerchief as a favor? Yes, he'd wanted something to trump Charles' collection.To mate with her himself the night before she was supposed to marry Arthur? No. Not at all.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Also written because Ruairi O'Conner is both not only a good actor but also attractive enough to make me forget he's playing Henry VIII.  
I'll be updating the first chapter about once a week or possibly once every two weeks for the foreseeable future, depending, of course, on how much time I have to write this filth. Once I've finished that I'll probably try to publish the second and third chapter in one go.

Henry could smell her, even from the other side of the damned rampart and he could just make her out as well, this slight red haired seventeen year old. As she grew closer, he could see that her cheeks were-_ pale, almost sickly _ , his grandmother had said-flushed a fetching pink beneath her veil. Buckingham led her up the steps, taking her hand as if to aid her balance and Henry wanted to rip his lungs from his very chest for that slight. That was when he realized he was shaking. Catherine’s face was covered by a veil that did absolutely hide a mouth that could turn the most devout monk into a sinner. She walked up quickly followed by her women, wrapped in a cloak of cloth of gold. She was sublime. Charles' hand shoving Henry’s back was the only thing that made him bow to her. _ Pomegranates _ , he realized, _ She smelled like pomegranates and a warm hearth in the dead of winter. _

"May I introduce Prince Henry, Duke of York." Stafford said. Catherine's eyes focused on Henry for a moment too long, running across his shoulders and down his chest. Henry ground his teeth together. 

"Harry," Henry said. "People call me Harry."

Catherine cocked her head to the left and smiled at him. Henry cursed the red modesty cloth covering her boding gland. It had to be inflamed, red and bruised and begging for a proper bite. _ No wonder they had sped up the wedding. _

"Do you like it here?" Henry found himself asking. "It's homely."

_ Homely, yes, homely, isn't it my lady? _ Henry thought. _ Wouldn't you like to build a nest here, my lady? _

_ Jesus, no wonder they's sped up the wedding if she was so close to a fucking heat. _

"I'm Charlie Brandon." Charlie said from behind him. "Not yet married."

Henry watched Catherine not look back at her ladies. She was still staring at him and Henry couldn’t help but stare back. He watched as her pupils expanded, black devouring pale blue. Henry saw both her sharp inhale and the way she seemed to sway towards him. Catherine’s sin inspiring mouth was parted open just enough that Henry could imagine how she would look in a pant, naked, dripping in sweat, with his knot locked into her. Henry shifted his stance, feeling his body respond to the sharpening of her scent. It was turning ashen, like burning wood and desperate. _ Jesus. What idiot let her travel if she was this bloody close to her heat? _

"It's, uh, me who'll be leading you up the ile tomorrow." Henry said, voice cracking. _ She's not for you _ , he reminded himself, _ She's not_. "Lucky you, eh?"

She smiled, soft and sad before she took a step forward and Henry thought she might press her lips to his neck as she had written in her letters. 

"Thank you for your welcome, Prince Harry." Catherine said, instead. He bowed out of her way alongside Charlie but caught her eyes as she looked back at him.

She knew, _ oh_, she knew well enough who she ought to be going to the marriage bed with. _ Fuck_, Henry thought. _ Every inch of her body knew. _

"Well," Charlie laughed after the women were gone. "You'll be an uncle by the end of the spring, no doubt. Even your brother couldn't resist that."

The sound that came out of his chest made Henry jump in time with the flinch of terror on Charlie's face. He sounded like the King, his father, had when his mother had fallen from her horse during a hunt. She had let out the most terrifying yowl Henry had ever heard and his father had whipped his horse around and flung himself from the saddle while the horse was near a full canter. Henry had watched, terrified, as the King knelt by his wife, shouting for a physician. For weeks following the accident, his father had kept his mother within his company even more frequently than was his custom. Henry didn’t want to imagine what would have happened if she’d died. 

"Henry..." Charlie spluttered out but Henry ignored him, stalking off after Catherine, mind made up. Better to make her his wife than to bed his brother's. God knows it would come to that, if she went down that ile tomorrow.

Henry found Catherine in the tapestried, feasting hall, still cloaked in her gold. She was looking around curiously and the Duke of Buckingham was at the other end of the room, thankfully. _ For his own safety, _ Henry thought. Catherine's scent was filling the air, giving it life for the first time in centuries. There was a damp scent to her now and Henry felt his blood rush to his cock as it hardened to half mast in his pants. _ How far was she away from writhing on her sheets? _ Henry wondered. _ An hour? Half an hour? _

"They only use this place for special occasions." Henry announced, watching Stafford bob a bow before looking back out the window, completely uninterested in Catherine. _ Good_, Henry thought as he stalked toward his omega. She was probably soaking through her undergarments now. Catherine’s eyes locked onto him, wide and eager. _ Don't worry querida_, Henry thought, slowing the pace of his walk to a meander that did nothing for the ache in his prick. _ I've got you now _ . Catherine smiled at him, again, this one but a half grin beneath her veil. _ It was more suited for a widow _, Henry thought. 

"What are you wearing that veil for?" Henry asked. "Is it to stop my brother from kissing you?"

Henry came to stand but a foot away from her, hands clasped in front of his chest so that they were visible, humble, _ unthreatening_. He wasn’t going to throw her over his shoulder and drag her off to some miniscule closet to ravish her. Catherine stepped closer, head cocked again with only that damn red and gold noose between her mating gland and his eyes. Her eyes dilated so that her black pupils almost completely eclipsed the clear blue of her irises, as she took another step closer.

"I wear it until I am wed." Catherine said, looking up at him as she stepped even closer, close enough that her breasts were nearly pressed to his stomach. "In Spain, I would wear a veil that obscured my face from the view of all until I was taken to either the altar or the mating bed by my husband."

He slowly put his hands on the metallic cloth of her cloak. They were shaking.

"And in Spain, would the mating end be considered equal to the church?" He asked. She raised one small, delicate hand up until it was of an even height with her forehead and traced the detailing of his doublet.

"Infanta." One of her ladies called out. Catherine did not look away from him, eyes searching his face for something. Henry felt the urge to stand straighter, taller, growl, and puff up. But he forced his body to relax. He would not scare her, not ever, and not now, not when she was seconds from being within his arms.

"Yes it would." Catherine responded, raising her hand to fiddle with the collar of his shirt. “I was told it is not so here.”

“It is all but a crime to bond an omega and not wed them.” Henry told her. Catherine let her eyes trail down his neck and then carefully moved her fingers to trace his collar bone. 

“And the punishment?”

“Flogging.” Henry responded. “Though I doubt any man who had had you would want anything but to run to a church and say his banns.” _ Other than get his cock back into her cunt, _ Henry thought, _ but god damn him if he actually said that. _ Catherine left her hand on his collar bone but she raised to the edge of her veil. Henry felt his face crack into a full toothed, wolfish smile, as she lifted the infernal scrap of cloth from her angelic face and threw it back over her hair. Henry slipped his hands beneath her cloak, wrapping his palms almost completely around her petite waist.

"Any alpha that would abandon you has no right to that title." Henry whispered, bending his head down to press his nose to her temple. Inhaling the scent of pomegranate, incense, blood and slick, he felt Catherine's nose nuzzle into his neck. Henry opened his eyes, only to catch the sight of Stafford racing toward them. In a split second the two Alpha's eyes met and Catherine pressed her lips to the bare skin of Henry's neck.

Henry scooped Catherine into the air and snarled, hauling her away from the Duke. He tucked his mate behind him, heart hammering in his throat, before growling at the older Alpha. Henry was completely terrefied, watching as the older man's hand reached for the hilt of his sword. _ He would take Catherine from him, _ Henry thought. _ Saints Blood, they all would take her from him, bar him in a cell and march her down the aisle for his brother. _ Henry realised. _ He’d kill Arthur. He’d rip his throat out if he had Catherine. _

Buckingham was frozen about twenty feet from Henry, white faced and mouth agape as was the moorish lady Catherine had brought with her.

"Infanta..."

"Your Grace..."

The two spoke at the same moment and, then, they both stopped. Henry felt Catherine grab onto his back and tug at his clothes, urging him toward the doors that had to lead to her bedchamber. Henry shuffled to the left, throwing a hand back to put his palm on Catherine's shoulder in reassurance. Whether it was for his or her benefit, Henry wasn't certain. Catherine's lady spoke first, in Spanish. Henry wasn't fluent by any means but he understood enough to know that she was reminding Catherine that she was to be Queen of England.

“It seems she’d rather be the Duchess of York.” Henry responded and felt Catherine’s hands go under his jacket to yank at his doublet. The voice that came from behind him was a stern as any fully grown Alpha that Henry had heard. 

"God has clearly chosen a different destiny for me, Lina." Catherine said. "For I would not by as I am if it was not His will."

"Your Grace..." Stafford began but Henry turned his back to the older man, picked Catherine up by her tiny, fragile waist and ran toward the closest door. 

"No!" She yelped at him and for a moment, a horrible, horrible moment he thought she had changed her mind. "The second door!" 

Catherine pointed one empirical finger at the correct door, which Henry, dutifully, charged through. He would have liked to say that he locked the door behind him and carried Catherine to the bed. Henry would have loved to say he laid her down atop of it and carefully stripped her of her clothes before making love to her but in reality it was complete madness. He bit at her neck, leaving teeth marks beneath her chin and along her airways while she contorted in his grip to bar the door behind him. Catherine tore at his doublet and shirt with her nails as Henry stumbled around aimlessly with little idea of where to begin with his newly won prize. He ended up sitting her down on the desk across from her bed and letting her shove his jacket from his shoulders. Henry dumped it, the finest piece of clothing he owned, onto the floor without a second thought because she was kissing him. Catherine’s sinful, soft lips went over his cheeks and her hands grabbed the back of his curls. Henry had kissed a dozen pretty girls before, one or two of them Omegas. Jesus, he'd even spent two dozen evenings groping Jane Poppincourt's ripe cunt in dark corners of the palace. But none had unmanned him in the manner that Catherine's sweet lips did. Their mouths slowed together with an ease that should have been reserved for old lovers who had known the other a thousand times over. 

Henry kissed her back, frantically, and she parted her lips to receive his tongue. But as he groaned, tasting her mouth in something akin to starvation, Catherine's tongue met his invasion with her own, teasing him closer into his body. Catherine parted her thighs so that Henry could slot himself between them. Overjoyed, Henry growled in triumph and pressed forward, wrapping his arms around Catherine's back. He eased his lady-_ his omega, his woman _-onto her back. He kissed his lips one final time before pulling back and kissing his way down her neck as she arched into him. Henry stopped when he reached that infernal, damned to hell, modesty cloth. He ran his fingers along it's fabric, looking for the knot that would bear her bonding gland to him. He found it, only to fumble the string beneath his fingers. Catherine slapped his hand away and tore the damned cloth off her neck herself.

"Oh, Querida." Henry whispered at the sight of her gland. It was red and yellow, already bruising and swollen beyond what could be counted as comfortable. He ran his fingers over it gently, half in awe, half horrified. Catherine whimpered.

"Please." She said. "Please."

Henry bent his head, pressed a kiss to her bonding gland and bit down. Catherine’s howl seemed to echo off the walls of the room as the tang of her blood and juices hit Henry’s tongue. _ Jesus Christ. _Catherine’s hands pulled at his curls, yanking them hard enough to make him flinch before she went completely slack in his arms. Henry lowered her onto the desk with his teeth still buried into the side of her neck. He could feel the wild hammering of his pulse reverberating through his mouth into his jaw. 

“_Harry_,” Catherine gasped. Henry unwound his right hand from around her back and cupped her cheek, turning her head so that her nose would be pressed to his curls. The movement tugged the gland clamped between his teeth and Catherine let out a sharp cry. 

_ Fuck, _ Henry thought as cock jumped to the sound of her pain. He released Catherine’s bonding gland which drew another whine from her full lips. Henry started to scramble off of Catherine, wanting to inspect his handiwork- _ wanting to get on his knees, haul those skirts up and have another taste of her _-but a small hand grabbing at his collar kept him on top of her. 

“Querida?” Henry asked, lips almost brushing over her broken gland as he spoke. 

“Lick me.” Catherine ordered, voice shaky. 

_ God fucking save me, _ Henry thought as he felt his prick dig into the tie of his hose _ . Yes, he’d be getting his tongue on her properly. He was going to devour her. _Henry heard himself groan at the thought. He kissed the deflated gland, imagining the sharp relief Catherine must have enjoyed when he’d bit and tried to push off of her again. Catherine tugged on his collar again, wrapping one leg around his back, keeping him secured to her.

“Harry, you need to scent me.” She informed him. Henry nuzzled his nose into her neck and kissed the outer edges of her gland’s bruising, growing increasingly confused. He snuffled his way up her cheek until his nose was pressed into the place where Trastamara gold-red hair curled over her ear. She still smelled like pomegranates but the scent of a fire had changed. It was as if a boar with apples stuffed in its belly had been on a spit. 

“_Henry,” _Catherine whispered into his ear. “Please, mi amor, I want you to soothe my pain. I want to carry you scent when you put your heir inside of me.”

“Fucking hell,” Henry gasped out. Catherine pushed his head back toward her shoulder but Henry’s mouth was already on her. He sucked at the gland and flicked his tongue over his fresh bite mark. She whined, body jerking beneath him. Henry took the liberty of taking his hand from her cheek and bringing it down to cup her breast through her dress. He could feel Catherine’s chest heaving as he all but slobbered over her shoulder. 

Henry could smell how wet she had to be, _ god _. Her underclothes were probably beyond saving at this point and he hadn’t even touched her. Henry pulled his mouth from Catherine’s neck and rose above her. Her eyes seemed to trace over his features, studying his face as she had studied his body on the ramparts not even half an hour before, clearly making note of the tiniest of his freckles. He hoped she liked what she saw.

“Let me kiss you,” Henry whispered to Catherine, his own mouth so close to hers that he could feel her breath. She leaned up and pressed her lips to his. This time it was as dry as the ones he would press to the side of his sister’s mouths in greeting. He turned his head, opening his mouth to coax Catherine into doing the same. She responded eagerly, her tongue clumsily brushing over the pallet of his mouth before Henry grabbed the back of her head, nipped her bottom lip and wrestled her tongue back into her mouth. Their tongues wrestled together in a dance somewhat akin to a battle. Catherine’s hands grabbed onto his shoulders as her other leg wrapped around his back. The movement was enough of a distraction for Henry to lose the battle as Catherine ran her tongue over his molars, exploring his mouth. He wondered if she liked the taste of herself. 

Henry broke the kiss with a snap. He pulled his omega’s legs from his back and got off of her before she could do little more than groan in protest. Catherine’s hands chased him as she sat up, delicious mouth hanging open in a pant. _ God, _ Henry thought, _ He’d have to have her suck him before her heat was done _. But, for now, he wanted to be on his knees. 

“Henry?” Catherine asked as he knelt down. “What are you doing?”

“Tasting you, love.” Henry told her as he pulled her skirts up over her calves, bunching them over her thighs. Her calves were slim but well defined, coming down to thin, delicate ankle bones. Henry put both of his palms under her kneecaps and tugged her legs open wider. He’d heard from report after ambassadorial report that she was petite, and, _ Jesus, _ he could see it for himself but watching, _ feeling, _the muscles of her calves fail to fill his hands as he slid them down to her ankles was a completely different thing entirely. 

“Saint’s blood,” Henry whispered, curse coming out of his mouth as if it was prayer. He pulled off her shoes and pressed a kiss to the bone on the inside of her ankles. 

“Are you scenting me?” Catherine asked, accent heavy. _ I’ve already done enough of that, _ Henry thought, though, he supposed that cunnilingus might be considered her scenting _ him. _

“No.” Henry responded as he kissed his way up her calf. “You don’t know what that means, do you?”

Catherine shook her head, peering down at him with her large eyes. Her brow was wrinkled together and her rosebud lips turned downward into a frown.

“You don’t like not knowing.” Henry assumed. Catherine raised an eyebrow and then bobbed her head. Henry gently kissed the inside of her right thigh, just above her knee. He pushed her skirts higher, exposing more of her pale thighs. Catherine was looking down at him, eyes impossibly wide and full lips pursed together. 

“I’m the same way.” Henry assured her. He ducked his head into her skirt and pressed one open mouth kiss on the upper part of her inner thigh. The scent that hit his nostrils was almost enough to make him come in his hose. Henry grabbed at his cock, feeling it twitch and spurt pre-come. 

_ Fucking hell. This woman was going to destroy him. _

“Lie on your back.” Henry ordered her in a voice deeper than he ever thought he’d heard it come out of his mouth. Catherine hesitated a moment before lying back onto her forearms but holding her head up to watch him. Henry pushed her skirts up to her waist to get his first look at her cunt. The hair framing her slit was the same beautiful shade as the hair on her head. 

“Scoot down,” Henry said. When she blinked at him rather than immediately moving, Henry grabbed her legs and pulled her to the edge of the desk. Catherine squeaked and kicked at shoulder. Henry grinned up at her before leaning in, hauling her thighs over his shoulder and kissing the hair above her cunt. He nuzzled his nose into the coarse curls, filling his nostrils with the scent of her heat, as he slid his fingers along the outermost edges of her cunt and listened to her sharp inhale. Henry wondered if Catherine had touched herself, gotten her fingers wet in her cunt and then rubbed her clit until she’d orgasmed. He’d have to remember to ask when they were finished. 

Henry pulled away and looked down at her cunt, sliding his fingers into her lips and spreading her open. Catherine wasn’t pink like Jane Poppincourt was when Henry got a look at her but red and leaking, like she’d already been fucked. Henry ran his finger up the rub along the outside of her clitorus. Jane had told him that that always got her started towards being wet. 

“Ohh, ohh,” Catherine let out a low moan as her cunt twitched, flexing in and out for a heartbeat. 

“So beautiful” Henry whispered. He put his tongue right above her arsehole and licked all the way up to her clit. Catherine shouted out a loud, high shocked sound that Henry swore the nobles outside of the door could hear. Well, he _ certainly _ hoped they could hear.

Henry parted the wings of her clitorus and licked straight at it’s core, making her legs clamp around his head. He swirled his tongue around the little nub as she her let out a real, proper moan. Her voice was already deep, filled with the promise of carnal pleasure but that particular sound made him repeat the action until his tongue started to feel sore. 

“Oh Harry,” Catherine sobbed out, grabbing at his curls. She pulled at them unashamedly. Henry almost sobbed himself feeling the sharp, arousing pain go straight to his cock. He put his hand back over it and scrambled to undo the laces as he continued to lap at her. _ Fuck, she was delicious_. Henry, finally, _ finally, _ got his hose open to let his cock spring free. He rubbed his thumb over it's head, feeling his own precome dripping from his slit. Henry stroked himself almost frantically as his jaw began to ache. _ God save him_, _ he loved doing this. _

Henry pulled his tongue from her clitorus and ducked his head, feeling strands of his hair rip out of his scalp between Catherine’s fingers. He circled his tongue around her cunt, enjoying her mewls and fluttering muscle beneath his tongue. 

“Do that again!” Catherine all but shrieked. Henry tried not to chuckle at her indignation, clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth and pressed his finger to her entrance. She let out a squeak which quickly turned into a howl as he sealed his mouth over her clit. 

“Harry! Oh Dios mio! Follar!” Catherine sobbed from above him. Henry worked at her more frantically, knowing well enough that if she was talking she wasn’t anywhere near cumming. He pushed his first knuckle into her, curving it to look for the spongy part just inside her. Catherine panted for a minute and then let out a whine. 

Henry could feel his knot starting to swell beneath his fingers. _ Good lord, he was going to cum before he’d even been inside her. _He tightened his grip around it, giving himself something tight to rut into. Henry sealed his lips over her clit and worked his tongue between its wings making Catherine go completely silent. He slipped his finger out of her to rub along the edge of her cunt before gently slipping it back in to rub at her internal pleasure spot. Catherine whimpered. 

That sound, _ that precious little sound_, was enough to make Henry’s knot fill with a rush of blood. His mouth went slack as he felt his orgasm burn up his spine and turn his belly into knots. His cock throbbed and pulsed, as he spilled all over his hose and the floor. Henry rested his head against Catherine pelvis and panted, feeling his knot pulse out spurts of cum between him fingers. He shook through his orgasm, moaning into her cunt as his seed stained his thighs and the floor. _ God, _ He thought as brain struggled to work, _ this woman was either an angel or a succubus. _

“Ehem.” After a moment Catherine spoke, her voice full of displeasure. “Proceed please.” 

“Sorry, my love.” Henry responded, placing both of his hands back on her thighs. He suctioned his mouth over her clit making her hips arch up into him. Henry used his free arm to push her abdomen down so he could lick her from the bottom of her cunt all the way to her nub. The little, high gasp was enough to make Henry do it again. Then he carefully slipped his tongue into the opening of her cunt. Catherine squeaked, the muscles of her legs locking up beneath his palms. Henry moaned as the taste. He’d heard knights joking about how good an omega’s heat struck cunt felt around their knots but he couldn’t imagine why no one talked about it’s taste. _ Mother of Jesus_, He thought, _ Surely this is heaven. _He released her legs to pull open the lips of her cunt so he could kiss her properly. 

“Kiss me higher.” Catherine panted and yanked on Harry’s curls. He lapped on her dripping cunt one last time before he closed his lips over her nub and swirled his tongue around it’s outer lips. 

_ Use your lips to keep me warm and then your tongue for pleasure. _ Jane Popincourt had told him. Henry owed that woman a thousand thanks. Catherine was moaning from above him, her other hand coming to grip his curls while her thighs tightened around his head. _ Come on, _ Henry thought petulantly, _ give it to me, Catherine. _As if she read his mind she bucked her lips into his mouth and came with a howl. He felt a rush of warmth against his chin while Catherine pulled and pawed at his hair. Henry felt his knot pulse with renewed interest at the pain. 

When Catherine’s hands released his hair, Henry dipped his head down so he could get another taste of her. She was completely soaked, her slick completely coating her cunt and the hair surrounding it as well as down the curve of where her thighs met her pelvis. Harry took a moment to nuzzle that soft, wet strip of flesh before he lapped at her cunt, yet again. This time Catherine didn’t protest and the room fell into silence, other than Catherine’s pants. Henry worked in silence, straining his tongue to get it into her cunt. The feeling of the heat trapped within Catherine’s body warmed his tongue. _ She was on fire, _Henry realised as he wriggled his fingers beneath her tight stomacher and corset to feel her sweat. 

“Harry,” Catherine purred, pushing his head away from her. “Harry, mi amour…”

Henry looked up at her only to find her skirts blocking his view of her angelic face. He pushed them out of the way to see her smiling down at him. 

“Hello, sweetheart,” Henry said softly. Henry pulled his fingers from beneath her corset as she reached down to stroke his cheek. Henry leaned toward her touch, nuzzling into her palm and wrist. He kissed the pads of her fingers when she went to curl them beneath his chin and tilted his head up. Catherine ran her thumb over his slick bottom lip pushing it down and clearly eyeing the spit and slick that stained his mouth. Henry stuck his tongue out and licked her thumb. 

“Must you act like a cat?” Catherine asked, smiling indulgently, and took her hand from his face. She started to scoot forward to hop off the desk but Henry stopped her, grabbing her hips as he stood. Perched on the desk Catherine looked up at him with her huge, owlish eyes. Henry kissed her forehead and stuck his long nose into her hairline. 

“You’re heaven.” Henry murmured into her hair. 

“You did not tell me you had visited God.” Catherine responded, as her fingers tugged at the ties of his doublet. Henry ducked his head down to kiss her rose petal mouth in response. Catherine kissed back gently, sweetly, this time without a hint of greed or lust. Her tongue slipped cautiously against the seam of his lips, asking for entrance. When Henry let her in, she seemed content to just explore his mouth, hooking her tongue against the back of his teeth and then tracing his tongue with her own. Henry wondered if she could taste her own slick when she arched into him, her small breasts pressing into his chest, and started to purr. Henry wrapped his arms around her back and matched her exploratory tongue with his own. He could feel the vibrations of abdomen in his arms and against his chest. Catherine threaded her fingers through the back of his curls and pulled his head down so he could properly devour her. He nipped at her bottom lip and angled his head, moving his lips to widen his own mouth. Catherine matched him with her movements and the kiss became wet, slick and the kind of filthy that was only good for one moment before it became disgusting. Catherine mewled into his mouth and Henry felt his cock stiffen up into hardness. He broke their kiss. 

“Would m’lady prefer to lose her maidenhead on the desk or m’lady’s bed?” Henry asked. Catherine arched one elegant eyebrow and appeared to mull over his question for a moment. 

“Her bed.” She responded primly. He scooped her up and hurried over to her bed. It was an elegant thing with green and gold curtains and a green comforter with black fur. _ Fit for an Infanta_, Henry thought and then smirked to himself. _ Or the Duchess of York. _

He gently laid Catherine onto the bed, placing her golden-red head onto her pillow. She looked like an angel, laying on the mattress, skirts twisted around her knees, with a startled expression on her face as she stared at his legs. Henry looked down. 

“Saint's blood,” He murmured. His cock was lolling out of his stained pants, hard with a half formed knot at it’s base. Catherine chuckled lightly. He looked up at her, trying to put on a face of anger that was betrayed by his blush and smile. Catherine giggled, lifting her petite fingers to her mouth. Henry shook his head in embarrassment. 

“Well, that’s one thing men never talk about.” Henry teased Catherine. “Standing in front of a pretty omega with your cock out and having her laugh at it.” 

“You’d look less foolish if I could see the rest of you.” Catherine told him. Henry snickered to himself, tearing his doublet and shirt over his head in one go. He heard the cloth rip and what was probably a pearl or two go bouncing off the floor but found he couldn’t care less. Without looking at Catherine, he shoved his pants down his legs and then knelt down to yank his feet out of his boots. They were new, not properly broken in and pinched his heels when he freed his feet. He should have worn his old, re-shoed pair. 

“What happened to your arm?” Catherine asked. She rolled onto her side and propped her chin onto her fist. Her eyes roamed over his chest, clearly liking what she saw if the pink in her cheeks held any truth. Henry looked at the bruise on his right bicep and shrugged. He honestly had no idea where that one had come from. 

“Jousting probably.” He told her, having never actually jousted in his life. _ But the tiltyard counted_.

Henry crawled onto the bed, hovering over his omega. Catherine’s sharp inhale was all but music to his ears. Her eyes ran from his cheekbones down to the defined muscles of his chest and belly before they lingered on his stiffening cock. Henry had half a mind to just push her skirts up and sink into her cunt but he held himself very still as Catherine’s eyes examined him. She raised a hand and placed back onto his collar bone. Catherine stroked her thumb over the bone, making Henry unashamedly growl. Catherine glanced up at him, eyes wide as she scratched her nails over the muscles of his chest. Her face turned nervous as she leaned forward and kissed his sternum. Henry thought his smile had to possibly feral at this point. He dove down and kissed her c'est with an open mouth, revelling in her mewl and the sharp arch of her back. Henry worked his way up her neck, ignoring her bonding gland, figuring he’d already marked that bit of skin, and kissed the other side of her neck. He kissed and licked from the strip of skin behind Catherine’s ear to the muscles of her shoulder, leaving and soothing bruises and drinking in the sound of her moans. He settled on top of her, still keeping the majority of his weight on his elbows but shifting just enough so that Catherine could feel both his hard cock and the pressure of his hips between her thighs. 

“Take me.” Catherine moaned, her accent and cries enough to make the words indecipherable to Henry’s ears. 

“What?” He asked, mourning the seconds he had to take his mouth off her skin to speak. 

“Fuck me.” Catherine responded. Henry shook his head. _ Who would have let this lion go to bed with my brother? _

“Don’t…” Henry was about to respond when he heard his father’s voice from outside the door. The King spoke softly enough that Henry could barely make out what he was saying. Henry, deciding to ignore his father on the basis that-given he and Henry’s mother had fallen into each other in an _actual cupboard_ in a_ convent, _ having not spoken _ a word to each other_-Henry VII would understand the circumstances. Henry rested more of his weight of Catherine, pressing the muscles of his thin waist and his chest atop her. Then he heard another familiar voice, mildly high and frantic. Henry’s head snapped around so he could watch the door, expecting it to fly open. He felt Catherine’s hands on his shoulders. She stroked her hands down his flanks, making Henry gasp, his skin pebbling and his cock twitching where it rested between Catherine’s hips. Henry’s eyes remained fixed on the door. 

“Calma, Enrique.” Catherine said, her hands rubbing up and down his back in an attempt to sooth him. Henry relaxed and cupped her cheek with his hand, stroking her cheekbone but, still, he kept his eyes on the door. 

“Calma,” Catherine whispered, bringing his mouth to his ear. “Calma Alpha.”

_ Enough of this, _Henry thought, shuddering, and turned his head to put his mouth back on her neck. 

“He planned this! I told you. He wanted to take her from me.” Arthur’s voice came from outside the door. Henry felt every muscle in his body seize up. _ She’s not for you, _ He thought. _She’s mine.__ She’s lying underneath me._

Henry sprang off of Catherine and rolled off the bed. Catherine hurried after him, hands grabbing at his back and arms. She managed to get a grip on his bicep, the one with the bruise, and Henry ended up dragging her along after him as he stormed up to the door. He banged his fist against it, making it rattle in it’s frame. Henry ducked his head and pressed his ear against the wood, listening. There was complete silence outside. _ That’s it, _ Henry thought, _ slink away like you always do. _

“Harry?” Catherine’s hands released his bicep. He felt a dull throb of pain in his arm but it was masked by the adrenaline and arousal coursing through his veins. Her arms wrapped around his waist and ran her hand up and down his stomach. Catherine’s hand stopped just below his belly button.

“He won’t touch you,” Henry said. He sounded scared, even to his own ears. “Catherine…uhhh.”

Catherine’s petite fingers gently brushed over the tip of Henry’s cock. She traced around it’s head and started to kiss his spine. 

“Shhh,” Catherine whispered between her kisses. “It’s alright Henry. Calma. Calma.” Catherine grabbed his cock just above his knot and held it to his stomach, just massaging between her fingers. 

“Catherine.” Henry groaned. He felt his erection begin to pulse under her touch and from the way her mouth widened against his back she felt it too. He reached down and curled her fingers around him. “Stroke me.”

There was a moment’s pause in which Henry changed his mind. Henry could just make out Arthur’s scent from behind the door. His brother had to be absolutely terrified, Henry realized. _ Good, _He thought. 

Henry knocked Catherine’s hand off his cock, spun around and picked the omega up. She squeaked. He stalked to the bed, dropped her right back on her pillow, and climbed back on top of her. Henry shoved his hand up her skirts and lunged forward to kiss her. Catherine dragged up her skirt up for him and he felt his cock brush against her bare thigh. Henry grabbed the back of her head and pulled her mouth to him. He shoved his tongue into her mouth, clacking their teeth together. Henry’s fingers followed the trail of slick up her thigh to the hot center of her body. He didn’t slip his fingers into her cunt but cupped his hand over her mound, feeling the heat almost radiating from her. Henry broke their kiss and looked down at her. Catherine was panting hard enough that her teats were straining over the neckline of her dress. 

“Want you out of this.” He told her, pulling at the neckline of her dress. “I want to see all of you, Querida. Have you ever had your breasts kissed?” 

“I am a maid.” Catherine responded as she tried to sit up and pushed at his chest. Henry hummed and kissed the top of her cleavage. He groped her breasts, cupping them and feeling just how well they fit into his palm. Catherine yanked his head back up from her breasts and pressed her lips to his neck, kissing him just below his chin. Henry groaned and his hips bucked forward into Catherine’s thigh. Catherine kept kissing him, she ran her hands down his back, nails scratching alongside either side of his spine. Henry rolled his shoulders back into her touch and dropped his head down to pant as Catherine’s mouth moved down to his shoulder.

“Fuck,” Henry moaned, cock leaking precome. He shifted his hips, moving his cock from Catherine’s thigh so that it dragged over the curls between her legs. 

“Please.” Catherine pulled her mouth from his neck and said. “Henry please.” 

Henry shook his head, hands pawing at her shoulders. The fabric of her dress wasn’t as thick as his doublet had been, Henry realized. _ Maybe I could tear it off of her? _He thought. 

“Alpha please.” Catherine whined as her hands grabbed his ass. The minx rolled her hips forward so that the base of Henry’s knot brushed against her wet folds. Catherine dug her nails into him as she kissed his neck again. “Please. I want to feel you.”

Henry kissed her, feeling half a fool as his clumsy hands grabbed at Catherine’s thighs, pushing her legs wider and shoving her skirts up around her belly. She bent her knees up around him as Henry grabbed his cock. He pressed it to Catherine’s cunt and felt it’s head twitching eagerly at the feeling of her wet folds against his shaft. Henry slipped a thumb into Catherine just to feel her flutter around him. 

“Fuck me,” Catherine whined and put one of her hands on his lower back as if to urge him on. Henry held her open and slowly eased his cock into her body. 

“Ahhhhh,” Catherine wailed from beneath. She was painfully tight around him and Henry was only an inch within her. Henry snarled and mouthed Catherine’s broken bonding gland, forcing himself to keep still. 

“I’m sorry love,” Henry murmured as he began to thrust into her. “Tell me to stop. Tell me to stop. Catherine.”

Catherine’s response came within the nails that raked down his arse and in the leg she hooked over the back of his thigh. There was a moment where soft wails and shocked breathes that were punched out of Catherine’s chest were the only sounds that filled the room and Henry’s head. They made him heart lurch in his throat and drove him deeper into her. She yelped at the hard thrust but when Henry tried to pull out of her, Catherine wrapped her other leg around his thighs and dug her nails into his arse, trying to hold him inside of her. Henry turned his head and kissed her, swallowing her cries as she swallowed his growls. 

“Catherine,” He whispered. “Catherine, Catherine, Querida….”

_ She truly was heaven_, Henry thought as his knot began to swell, _ Or hell. But she was his. She was his. _

Henry felt one of Catherine’s hands release his arse and slip between their bodies. She reached for her clitorus and Henry could feel her fingers rubbing it against his stomach just as he could feel how her cunt tightened in response. Henry howled as his knot snagged on the edge of her cunt, starting to tie the two of them together. Catherine’s fingers worked frantically between them as she cried out, her mouth falling slack beneath his lips as Henry orgasmed within her.


	2. Begging for Penance

Catalina awoke, completely covered in sweat, to see the last rays of the sun being chased away by the darkening sky.  _ I’ve lost the light again _ , She realised. She had wanted to see the gardens and the Queen’s lions before the day was done. Catalina felt the sweat blooming between her breasts and limbs aching with fever. She squirmed sluggishly about in her sheets, her brows knitted together in confusion as she realised she was naked. Catalina blinked rapidly to clear her eyes of the last vestiges to sleep and tried to sit up. She flopped right back down on her back as her head grew light and a throbbing pain appeared in her belly. She felt rivulets of sweat dripping through her scalp and how her nipples hardened painfully in the cold English air. She palmed one of them and felt her cunt throb in response. 

_ It came then,  _ Catalina thought sluggishly and shoved her fingers between her legs to seek out the pleasurable little spot between her folds for some relief.  _ God willing it would be a gentle heat.  _ Catalina rubbed at her clitorous roughly, as had been her habit when she was in heat before her mother had started having her bound to her bed, and then yelped in pain. She moved her fingers further down her folds and pressed one carefully into her cunt. Catalina flinched in discomfort. 

_ What have I done?  _ The Princess of Spain wondered as she saw her maiden’s blood staining her finger. Something stirred next to her and Catalina froze. Slowly she turned her head, eyes wide with horror, and saw a curly red head of hair resting atop a set of forearms.  _ Harry,  _ Catalina realised after a moment.  _ It was Harry. Her mate.  _ She felt her body heat to a boil at the memories made during the afternoon and her back arched off the bed, the demands of her heat suddenly becoming painful. She rolled toward him and ran a hand down his back. He was a handsome boy with broad shoulders, a pointed nose, an agile tongue and big hands. She quite liked those hands. They’d fumbled when he took her dress off but were almost big enough to fit around her waist and completely covered her breasts. Harry had cradled them, thumbs flicking over her nipples when she rode him like a man atop a stallion, his back propped up on the headboard.

_ _ Catalina felt her womb throb and a wave of slick wet her cunt at the memory. He’d sat with his back to the headboard of the bed, wooed her into straddling his lap, pushed her hair behind her shoulders and taught her how to rock her hips back and forth on his phallus.

_ “Mary, Mother of Jesus,” He had groaned to her, as she had found a good rhythm riding him. She’d gone for his neck, sucked a bruise and made him wail. Catalina’s oversensitive, swollen cunt was stretched as he began to swell inside her. Henry’s hands had gone from her hips to her breasts and pulled on the hard pick nubs. She’d screamed into his shoulder as the sensation had made her cunt flutter and clench. Catalina had slowed and ground down on him, nerves on fire as her orgasm built in her womb.  _

_ “Yes. Cum for me.” Henry had hissed- _ ordered _ . “I’m got you, my treasure, Querida, my sweet love.” _

He’d kept murmuring filth to her until  she came and hadn’t the strength to open her eyes for a good few minutes.

_ _ Harry had then laughed and groped her buttocks while she laid atop of him, exhausted, as they were tied together .

Her belly cramped at the memory of how he’d played with her, running his hands up and down her legs; her back; her flanks. 

God had not thought it proper to gift her with gentle heats. Catalina knew that. 

_ Rosa was lucky.  _

“Harry,” Catalina whined, rolled and tugged at his shoulder. He twitched but remained asleep. Catalina shook him again, her womb cramping as she felt a proper gush of slick stain her thighs. She was starting to shiver. Catherine stuck a finger in his ear. 

“ ‘Lee me ‘on.” Harry grunted and flapped a hand. 

“Enrique,” Catalina wrapped her arm around him and kissed the back of his neck. The feeling of Harry’s warm body against her sweaty skin was enough to make her shake. 

“Alpha.” Catalina whined and scratched her nails down his spine. He liked both of those things. “I need you.”

Harry rolled onto his side, put an arm over his face and started to snore. Catalina glared at him for a moment,  _ properly offended _ . Her stomach was starting to curdle as she knelt over him and she could feel her cunt throbbing. 

“Harry,” Catalina whined and tried to nuzzle her nose under his face. He turned away from her, again. Catalina crawled over him and hopped out of the bed, only to nearly double over as her lower back cramped. She whined at the feeling of the painfully cold air against her skin but Harry did not wake. Catalina straightened herself up, spared her new mate a disgruntled glare and yanked the blankets off his back. She shoved him away from the edge of the bed, climbed in next to him, snuggled into his chest, pulled the sheets up to her chin and took a moment to enjoy her return to _ warmth _ . 

Then she bit Henry’s collarbone. Hard. 

_ Nipped,  _ Catalina thought.  _ That was the proper English word.  _

“Ow! Saint’s blood!” Harry yelped, finally waking up. Catalina doubted she had hurt him badly but she licked the angry skin in apology. “Catherine? What are you doing?”

Harry disentangled himself from her or tried to as Catherine wrapped her arms around his shoulders and pulled him against her. His face was flushed, eyes still blurred with sleep and his mouth was open in confusion. 

“What…..?” Harry asked.

Catalina  caterwauled at him plaintively and looked up at him with an embarrassingly pitiful expression on her face, something she would deny doing for the rest of her life. 

“You’re...” Harry continued. “Oh God..You’re in heat. Properly in heat.”

_ Jesus have mercy,  _ Caralina thought,  _ He seemed to know well enough what to do earlier.  _

She whimpered pitifully at him yet again, hoping he hadn’t forgotten. 

Harry  _ finally moved, _ rolling atop her and swinging one of his legs over her hips. 

“Querida?” Harry asked. “Saint’s blood. It’s alright sweetling.”

“It hurts.” Catalina whimpered at him.

“I know, I know love.” Harry dipped his head and kissed her bonding gland. Catalina’s body jerked, her hips and lower back seized. Catalina yowled again, biting her lip to muffle the sound. She grabbed him by his shoulders and pulled him down on top of her, so they were lying chest to chest. His weight made Catalina shutter and rub up against him for it provided her some relief. His jaw dropped open and eyes nearly popped out of his skull. 

“Catherine,” Harry whispered. He sounded terrified.  _ Like a terrified boy _ . Catalina parted her legs and hooked one calf over his lower back. She felt him stiffen against her belly and unsuccessfully 

“Please, alpha.” Catalina choked out. “ _ Please. _ ”

“Easy, sweetheart, easy.” Harry kissed her forehead. “Roll over for me. Can you do that, Querida?”

Catalina blinked up at him as he crawled off her to sit back on his haunches. Slowly she rolled onto her front. The feeling of the sheet on her breasts made her skin pebble and her cunt pulse. Catalina buried her face into her forearm, much like Harry had when he was sleeping, humiliated, and sunk her teeth into her skin to muffle her cry as another wave of slick dripped between her fold. Her mother hadn’t warned her about how her body would betray her; how her voice would betray her; how her soul would betray her when she was mated and bred. Perhaps it was too sacred to be shared even between two omegas.

She jumped when she felt Harry’s hand on her lower back. He rubbed his thumb back and forth for a moment before sliding his palm up her spine. 

“Look at you, Querida.” He murmured. 

_ That’s what you are clearly doing,  _ Catalina thought. 

Catalina moaned as his fingers moved between her sweat soaked shoulder blades, pushing her hair out of the way and she heard his sharp intake of breath. Then his hand left her body. Catalina tensed and peered over her shoulder to see Harry reaching above her head to grab the pillow. He looked down at her, an expression on his face that Catalina did not recognise. His dark eyes made Catalina wine pleadingly. 

“Lift your hips up for me.” Harry murmured. When she did so he hummed softly and ran two fingers down from her arse to her opening, dipping them inside of her. Her muscles spasmed, closing around them as Catalina rocked back into his hand. The surge of relief from his touch was enough to override any sense of shame that she ought to have felt.

“Jesus save me, you’re wet.” Harry told her as he pulled his fingers out of her. 

“Obviously.” Catalina managed to respond as she grabbed two fistfuls of the sheet to keep from screaming. Harry shoved their pillow underneath her hips, lifting her buttocks into the air. 

“Lie back down, Querida.” He put his hand back on her lower back, easing her front flat to the bed. Catalina felt exposed, open in an unimaginable way as her alpha sat behind her. Harry kissed her spine and Catalina sobbed. With his free hand, Henry tugged her thighs wider and ran his palm up to her core. He slipped his thumb into her cunt, yet again, and cupped her mound with his palm. 

“Harry?” Catalina asked as his lips trailed down her spine before he bit her ass. Her hips jerked his hand as she yelped. “My body _already_ _hurts_.”

“You feel like you have a fever.” Harry commented. He sounded as he was in awe of her cunt, running his fingers gently around her folds. Catalina smacked her head against the bedding beneath her and groaned in frustration. The next sound that came out of her mouth was a pained moan as he slipped his thumb into her cunt. 

“Hmm,” Harry murmured as he pushed his thumb deeper into her, looking for something. “God, you’re dying for it aren’t you?”

Catalina could only respond with another caterwaul. She felt Harry jump in surprise behind her and wondered if she ought to just shove  _ the brat  _ onto the floor and ride him until she was satisfied. 

Thankfully for Harry’s arse, he pulled his thumb out of her and Catalina felt the bed dip as he moved to straddle her. Her body shuddered, reacting eagerly to the heat radiating off each of her alpha’s thighs. Harry stroked her flank, cooing as his phallus brushed against Catalina’s thigh before he took himself in hand and began to push into her. Catalina bit and clawed at the sheet, the pain of her relief almost as sharp as that of her need. Harry’s phallus stretched her sore cunt but his first thrust released the cramps from her back and womb. 

She heard herself moan as Harry began to rock in and out of her. Despite her pain, having Harry inside of her made coils of pleasure fill her womb and she writhed shamefully, rubbing her hard nipples on the  _ not rough enough  _ sheet beneath her as her alpha moved above her. She tried to push back up into him but he shoved her back down with one of his big hands between her shoulder blades, fingers tangling in her sweaty hair. She tried to push up onto her forearms when Harry took his hand off her back to throw her red curls to the side. With a growl, he shoved her back down on the bed and dropped his weight on top of her. Catalina let out a choked groan as the angle made his knot catch on the opening of his cunt and the weight of his body pulled something primal and pre-christian from her body. She went limp beneath him and sobbed. 

This was how Adam and Eve must have  _ fucked _ after the serpent and his apple had taught them what pleasure was. Adam would have gone mad for it after his wife pushed a slice of the fruit between his eager lips. Eve would have shoved him onto his belly into the dirt and ravaged him in front of the Devil, all of God’s creatures and God himself.

Harry was heavy on top of her, his body dwarfing hers. His shoulders framed her head and she could feel his ribs against her shoulder blades. He had to be bracing himself solely on his forearms. Catalina felt her pleasure begin to build in her belly as Harry bent, kissed the top of her head and growled lowly. She moaned and gasped beneath him, chasing her orgasm, body shaking beneath his. Then he gave her three sharp thrusts. Catalina hissed at him in displeasure before she could stop the sound from escaping her mouth. 

Thankfully, her alpha had the good sense to resume his gentle rocking pace. Catalina rewarded him with a wail and clenched around him. Harry made a rumbling noise in appreciation. It was rather deep for a man with such a high pitched voice and sent shivers down her spine. 

“How would they have bloody sent you away?” He choked above her. “How would they have _ fucking  _ given you to him? You’re mine. My Princess. My Summertime.”

It made her cunt clench as her pleasure began to build yet again. She could hear every whine and gasp coming out of her mouth and so could Harry. 

“Kill me,” he hissed. “Saint’s blood woman. Saint’s fucking blood. I thought...I thought you’d be perfect. I thought….” 

Harry’s knot started to swell, stretching the walls of her cunt and he let out a groan, falling silent. The feel of it inside her body made her cunt clamp down on him, preparing another wave of slick to reward her alpha. To encourage him to spill, to lock with her and give her a child. 

Henry howled as he came and she felt the first spurts of his seed inside of and pushed her hips back into him as much as she was able. The knot stretched the rim of her cunt and Catalina came, whining and shaking beneath Harry. He fucked her through it all, elongating the waves of pleasure until they bordered on pain. She bit at the sheet as she felt him pulse inside of her yet again. Catherine tensed and pushed back onto him as much of her shaking, pinned limbs would allow. 

“Summertime,” Harry choked out. “My Princess Summertime.”

Then he finally came with a bellow into her, filling her cunt properly. Catalina had the wind knocked out of her as he collapsed down onto her, his knot locking into her cunt. She whimpered, mewled, clacked and keened in complaint, mildly embarrassed but too lazy to form words. Harry rumbled softly in response and nuzzled at the top of her head. 

“Mmmh,” Harry murmured. “I’m so glad you're here. I thought I’ d go mad. I thought I’d go mad, my Summertime” 

_ Oh, no. What have I done?  _ Catalina thought grumpily and bit her tongue to keep from hissing or trilling. She didn’t know which.  _ What have we done?  _

Her lower back seized and she did actually hiss, turning her body to yank the pillow out from under her hips. 

“Catherine?” He asked. She succeeded in pulling it out and tossed it to the side. Henry fell on top of her again, winding her.

_ Why?  _ She wondered as she gasped for breath.  _ God save us both.  _

“My back cramped.” She said simply. They lay in surprising silence. Harry had proved himself quite the chatterbox over the past day and night. 

Catalina’s mind was racing but she shut her eyes and breathed as deeply as she could with her heavy, giant of a mate atop of her. 

_ Princess Summer, _ Arthur- _ Harry- _ had started calling her in the third or fourth letter. It was near unbelievable; foolish; unfaithful;  _ treasonous.  _

Harry’s arm wiggled beneath her belly and he got up on his knees. Catalina keened at the pull of his knot in her. The pain of it was sharp, like the loss of her maidenhead. She scrambled to get up on her hands and knees. He pulled her so she was sitting back on his chest and she yelped, instinctually clawing at his thigh.

“What are you doing?” Catalina hissed, trying to lift up on her knees. The angle shoved his knot against her cervix yet as she got up onto her knees his knot stretched the edge of her cunt to the point of pain.

“I’d thought you’d be more comfortable,” Harry said. Catalina took a slow breath.

“Lie down on your back,” She ordered him. He used the arms still wrapped around her stomach and pulled her back with him. Catalina tensed up, having planned to sit upright on him until his knot went down. 

“I’ve got you,” Harry soothed her. Catalina put her weight on her hands and let him guide her to lie on her chest. 

The shift of his knot inside her punched a gasp out of her chest. Catalina felt it twitch and wondered if she was too sore to rub herself to another orgasm. She wondered if he could fuck her like this. 

The sound of Harry spitting a chunk of her hair out of his mouth shook her from her thoughts and she tilted her head back to look up at him. Her waves covered most of his chest and neck. He was scowling petulantly, pulling out one lingering strand from his mouth.

“I was unaware I was so edible,” Catalina murmured, amused. He’d written that he wanted to know the taste of her skin and of her breath. She wished he’d been somewhat more explicit but, then again, the pleasure had been a lovely surprise.

_ Unlike his identity,  _ She thought.  _ By the laws of the church, this is incest.  _ She turned her head to the side, pressed her cheek against his chest and made a little sound before she could stop herself. 

_ Even David, God’s chosen king, was punished for stealing his Bathsheba.  _ She remembered.  _ What’s going to be done with us?  _ Catalina feared they were not so favored as the third king of Israel and his beloved omega. 

“I’m glad you enjoyed that, my lady,” Harry chuckled. He scratched his nails up and down her belly, making her skin pebble up. 

It was strange. She’d never been so aroused nor so insensitive to touch. Perhaps it was because she had never been touched after her first heat. Afterall, it had been when her mother had found her stripping her clothes off to lie on the cold floor at the start of the second that Isabella had had her tied down. Her heats had been a week and then some of agony interrupted by flashes of lust. But, with Harry, Catalina felt like her body had been pulled from a boiling bath in the winter time and not given a warm towel. 

“Can you do it again?” She asked, rather unashamedly. It was sodomy, she was well aware of that, but found she didn’t have the energy to care. Harry grimaced, half baring his teeth. 

“After you wash,” Harry replied. 

_ Brat,  _ She thought and fought the urge to grimace, herself. 

“Use your fingers then,” Catalina said, nearly embarrassed by how bold she was being. “And you can put your mouth on my breasts while you do.” 

“Saint’s Blood, Querida” Harry groaned. She felt his knot twitch inside of her and he keened. There was a slash of warmth in her cunt and Catalina wondered if she’d fall pregnant after this coupling. 

_ Princess Summertime,  _ Catalina thought.  _ Or are we going to pretend nothing happened? Are we going to pretend you didn’t promise me this? Are we going to pretend that you aren’t cruel enough to steal your own brother’s mate?  _

_ God save me, I think I love you anyways.  _

Bathsheba loved her David despite the murder of Uriah. Perhaps she was inspired by God but, more likely, it was just a frailty of her nature yet her love had come from a poison fruit. David had killed his most loyal servant to have Bathsheba. 

Harry had betrayed his own brother and his  _ future king  _ for her. _ _

She reached down, looking away from him and gently ran her fingers over the nail marks she’d left on his thigh. His body jerked beneath her. Catalina wondered if he suffered as much pain when he was in a rut as she was when she was in a heat.

Harry’s right hand cupped her chin and tilted her head up so that she was looking up at him. The part of his lips and his shocked eyes told her how she must look; pink cheeks, red, swollen, open mouth and wide, innocent blue eyes. He released her chin and traced his fingers on her lips.

“If I did not know of your piety I’d call you a succubus,” Harry murmured. The hand he had on her belly reached up to cup her breast and Catalina melted back into his chest. “Insatiable.’' 

“But you are a gift from God.” He continued. Catalina wondered cynically if he was talking about her or her body. 

* * *

Catalina woke on the fifth evening of her heat to the sound of a fire crackling. She slowly sat up, palming sleepily at the empty space beside her. The curtains of her bed had been pulled closed so that only a slip of the setting sun reached her blankets. She stretched, arching her back, curling her toes and lifting her arms into the air. She felt sated and happy, despite the throbbing between her thighs. Catalina slipped one pale hand down her stomach and cupped her mound. 

_ It’s pleasant,  _ She decided.  _ Despite the ache when Harry had her.  _

Speaking of her alpha, Catalina could hear his large feet padding around on the wooden floor. Catalina lifted her hand up lazily and pushed open her curtain. The window was a painting of pink and yellow with nary a cloud in the sky. Catalina thought she was going to have to resign herself to becoming accustomed to waking up in the evening. There was a clang of dishes and then the sound of Harry swearing. 

_ He’s a rather lovely boy,  _ Catalina smiled, bemused by his antics. There was another clang and more swearing.  _ He’s never had to serve himself, has he?  _

Harry was different than any man Catalina had imagined being wedded to. She itched at her throat. Harry needed to scent her yet again. He was unlikely to complain. 

Catalina rolled onto her stomach. She had expected kindness, gentleness and a moment of pleasure. She had expected to be wedded to an eager man, seemingly well educated in making love and hungry for her. 

Harry took her as if he were starving. 

Catalina had known what to expect of Arthur when she arrived in England. Her mother and her had discussed the consummation of marriages with her two weeks before she left for England. Properly discussed what was to be done in a marriage bed. Catalina had already known what conceiving a child required at the time and the pain that would come from the marriage bed. Isabella had told her of the pleasure of the act but she hadn’t told Catalina about the soft pur that would rise up her throat when she rolled over and put her nose into Harry’s pillow or how she would cradle and turn his head to the side when she sat on his knot to kiss the moles on his jawline. 

_ Her mother probably had shared those same intimacies,  _ Catalina realized.  _ But they would have been too private to recount.  _

_ And they involved her father.  _

Catalina shuddered, sat up and tried to kick the blankets of her legs only to tangle her feet in something. When she pulled the sheet down her legs she saw Harry’s bundled up pants and belt. She grabbed them, hopped out of bed, saw his boots tossed on the floor and  chattered her in displeasure at the mess he’d made. Her face went red in embarrassment. It was unseemly to make such sounds, even in the privacy of one’s own bed chamber. Her mother would be displeased. Catalinae forcibly shoved that thought from her head. Isabella of Spain knew well enough the struggle of an omega against her instincts but she had always defeated hers with a practiced kind of dignity that Catalina worked to emulate with every ounce of her body. 

_ Her brat _ was a distinctly undignified person. He was bent over the table with his shirt riding up over his bare arse as Catalina felt her face turn as red as her hair. She clasped her hands together, twisting Harry’s pants between her palms and took a breath, steadying herself and relaxing her face. There were moles on the back of Harry’s left thigh. Catalina bit her tongue from the desire to trace them with her tongue. 

“Good evening,” Catherine said calmly. Harry jumped, banged his elbow on the table and yelped. He turned around, cradling his elbow and scowling. 

“Have you forgotten something?” Catalina asked. Her voice crackled.

“What?” Harry chuckled. “Won’t you want me out of them the second I’ve laced them up?”

Catalina did not dignify that question with a response as she handed them to him. Harry didn’t take his eyes off of her naked body as he stepped into his clothes. To do his laces he bent his head and lifted his shirt up. The movement gave Catalina a wonderful view of both the curls on his head and the darker thatch of hair framing the base of his phallus. Catalina clasped her hands back in front of her, yet again, simply to give her fingers something to hold onto. 

Harry’s shirt had a deep cut that hinted at the place where his chest turned into his ribcage and bared his collar bone. Catalina shifted from side to side and then stiffened. Beneath a dress the miniscule motion would have been hidden. If it wasn't for her hair falling over her breasts, she would have be naked and Harry’s eyes caught her movement. 

“I need my robe.” Catalina said, far too quickly. She went to turn away only for Harry to grab her arm and pull her to his chest. He put his hands on her waist, on the skin just above her hips. Catalina curled her fingers into the cloth covering his collar and dropped her head onto his strip of bare skin. She nuzzled in, scenting him with a soft hum. She heard and felt the hitch in his breath before he gently cradled the back of her head with one hand.

“No you don’t,” Harry replied and wound an arm around her waist. “Are you cold?”

“I am well,” Catalina chuckled. 

Harry pressed a kiss to the top of her head and lingered there, his nose and lips in her hair. 

“I did promise that you’d never need furs to keep you warm at night,” Harry told her. Catalina gritted her jaw and nuzzled her nose further into his chest, hoping to distract him from how her body tensed against him. She took a breath through her nose.

_ Princess Summertime,  _ Catalina remembered.  _ My Summertime.  _

She’d been too feverish to remember for the past two days; driven feral with her heat. When he hadn’t been inside her or had his teeth in her neck she’d been clawing at him, desperate to the point of screaming in pain. None of her previous heats had been like that.

Catalina wrapped her arms around  _ her alpha’s  _ abdomen and tried to calm her pounding heart. He began to stroke her hair, tightened his grip on her waist and rumbled softly as if sensing her distress. 

“Why did you write to me?” She asked. It took no courage, afterall, it was just a simple question yet Catherine felt her heart quicken in her chest. 

It was Harry’s turn to tense up. Catalina felt his breath hitch and his hand stopped petting her. He stepped back, eyes alight with wonder and confusion, like some child being praised for something they thought would get them caned. Her fingers reflexively curled into his shirt and she followed, taking two shuffling steps forward. 

“How did you know?” He asked, smiling brightly.

“You called me  _ Summertime _ ,” Catherine said, looking up at him with wide eyes and a locked jaw. 

“You are the Summertime,” Harry replied. “You are the warm sun; you have the beauty of the blooming roses; the sweet flowery breath of the wind. Catherine, you smell like a feast, like the most succulent dishes. You are a  _ marvel _ .”

“And you, Harry,” Catherine said. “Are a wordsmith, bending words to your whim so that you might steal what is not yours.”

“But you are,” Her alpha responded. “You are  _ mine _ .”

“Now I am,” She acknowledged pressing her body back against his. He cupped her chin and tilted her head up.

“And the luckiest of men,” He whispered. “To have your love.”

He leaned in and kissed her. It was a deep, eager kiss but gentle, lacking the franticness of the past three days. A comfortable kiss. Catalina stood on her toes and wound her arms around his neck, pulling him down to her. His response was to pull away from her.

“Do you think I can pick you up?”  _ The brat  _ asked.

“No.” Catalina sniffed. His response was to scoop her up, ignoring her squawk and to carry to the desk. He dropped her onto it, none too gently. Harry hovered over her for a moment, smiling down at her for. Catalina thought he was going to kiss her. 

He did, on the forehead. 

“It’s venison today,” Harry informed her as he turned away and pulled over the chair. Catalina hopped down and made for the bed to grab her robe. “Oh, do you want to eat in bed?”

“No,” Catalina replied. “Our sheets have already suffered enough.”

She was right. They were smeared with dry sweat; his seed; her slick; his drool; her maiden’s blood and the wine they had both spilled. Catalina quickly wrapped herself up and hurried back to her mate and the food. Harry was draped over the chair, scratching his long throat. He patted his thigh and smiled hopefully at her. 

_ There is much I would say,  _ Catalina thinks.  _ Yet I wonder just how I might say it. _

Catalina perched herself back on the edge of the desk, crossed one knee over the other, exposing her bare shins to her mate. Harry reached out for her knee immediately and simply left it there for a moment. He smiled sheepishly up at her.

“Forgive me,” Harry said. “I’ve imagined you. Your eyes, your hair, your skin, your  _ voice  _ for so long that when I wake up I think I’m dreaming.”

Catalina smiled gently at him and put her hand over his. He was wearing rings, something he hadn’t done since they’d fallen into bed. As a matter of fact, her dress, smock, corset, petticoat, and modesty cloth were lying, crumpled on the floor. The room was a mess. 

_ Have you ever done chores?  _ Catalina wondered, looking down at Harry’s pale hand. He rubbed her thumb over it. She’d been required to care for Dominoes since she had been gifted him due to the fact that he would attack anyone else who so much as tried to feed him. Her parrotlet was an ornery bird if a stubbornly loyal one.  _ Of course not. Spoiled brat.  _

Catalina reached out and cupped her alpha’s cheek. The look in his eyes, the part of his lips made her feel power drunk. She’d never imagined being looked at like that. Like a man looked at the cross. Like foreigners looked at the Alhambra.

“I had no way to imagine you,” Catalina admitted. “I did not even dream of your face; your scent; your hands; your eyes.” 

_ Of course I didn’t. You lied to me,  _ She thought.  _ I dreamt of a silver tongued beta not an alpha. Not you. You never even sent me something with your scent because, Jesus Forbid, your game be up. _

Even the most sheltered nun would recognize the difference between the scents of an alpha and a beta. _ _

“Yet I find I’d have no one else,” Catalina admitted. “I thought of you as if you were a Knight of Camelot; Tristan perhaps or Eric but they’re little better than ink and parchment. You’re flesh and bone and blood and more than I thought a man could be.”

_ You were an afterthought.  _ She did not say that.  _ A name and a brief description of a brother to be, not a mate. You were little better than a boy. I barely gave you a passing thought until I met you.  _

_ Jesus save her _ , if it was not God’s will she’d spend the rest of her life attempting to atone for such a sin. She might spend it doing that anyways.  _ _

Harry kissed her wrist and then clamped it in his mouth gently. It was a gesture that pulled a soft, shocked trill from her throat. Catalina’s cheeks prickled as blood rushed to them and her belly flipped. Her mind went utterly, utterly silent and she stared, unblinkingly, at her mate. 

Harry released her, slid his hand up her thigh and pushed her robe open so it was bared to his greedy eyes. 

“No,” Catalina managed to choke out. “We should wait for the next wave.”

“They’re lessening up aren’t they?” Harry asked, leaving his hand exactly where it was. Catalina found she didn’t mind. 

She bobbed her head yes. 

“Yes, if God is good,” Catalina told him. “I often stay in confinement for ten days.”

“Because they’ll fade for two days and return,” Harry responded. She had told him of her heats eight months ago when she had gone two weeks without writing him and he’d written to her. His handwriting was so sloppy in terror that she’d barely been able to read it.

“Yes,” She said. “They don’t return if I fast once it is done.”

“Will you do that after we’ve finished?” Harry replied. She shook her head.

“My physician told me it would be unwise if I wanted a healthy baby before I left for England,” Catalina told him. Harry grinned happily at her. 

“Lord Tudor and Earl of Richmond,” He said. “Well, after My Lady Grandmother dies, that is. She’s leaving her titles to me.”

“Very generous,” Catalina replied. She leaned in and kissed his forehead. 

“Would you like being a Countess?” Harry asked her, catching her by the back of the head and keeping her close to him. He kissed the tip of her nose and her lips. 

“I am an Infanta of Castille and Aragon,” Catalina sniffed. “And I treasure that title to the point of sin. I fear I will enjoy being the Duchess of York just as much.”

“But not Countess of Richmond?” Harry teased. She tilted her head up and blinked at her mate. 

_ Infanta of Spain,  _ She thought.  _ Wife of Prince Arthur and, one day, Queen of England.  _

_ Wife of Harry, Duchess of York and, one day, Countess of Richmond. _

She forced herself to smile gently at her mate as she forced the boil of fury down in her gut. There was no point now. God had chosen a different path for her. 

“I have not yet decided.” Catalina replied. “I love having the Duke in my body. I love lying in his arms in the morning and kissing his neck to wake him. I love how he thinks; his kindness, his mirth, his intelligence. He is  _ fascinating  _ to me and I am lucky to be  _ his _ .” 

He hopped half out of his chair, grabbed her by the waist and hauled her onto his lap. Catalina found herself straddling his thighs, robe falling upon to bare the entirety of her legs and some of the curls on her mound. Harry was, thankfully, focused on her face. 

“You the most precious thing I have ever held in my hands and I’ll treat you as such. I swear to God, you...You take me to Eden,” Harry kissed her neck, right above her marked, bruised, scabbed bonding gland. “You are my Eden.”

“Al-Yanna,” Catalina replied, gently. “We shall make Paradise.”

“A heretical one?” Harry teased, clearly recognising the word. Catalina looked down at him. It was what the Moors and Moriscos call a garden, Eden and paradise. She had told him far too much of the world her parents were replacing and the subversion her servants had taught her; the subversion her confessor had enabled and encouraged. 

“My nurse has always said they are the same.” She reminded him and shrugged. 

“Cata? The morisco?” Harry asked. Her nurse had been a moorish convert who held so fastly to her beliefs that, at night, when she put Catalina to sleep she forgot who her princess was. 

“Yes,” She told him. 

“We shall build al-Yanna then.” Harry replied. He kissed down the column of her throat to nuzzle her collar bone. Catalina wrapped her arms around his shoulders and stuck her nose in the top of his wild curls. He smelled like dried sweat. Catalina lifted her nose up and put her chin in its place. 

_ Al-Yanna? Eden?  _ She wondered.  _ This sin has wound it’s way from our hearts into our blood.  _

It would reach her child should God not find some mercy for her. 

_ No,  _ She reminded herself.  _ He would not punish us for simply enacting his will. _

* * *

Her heat lasted seven days in total. She had awoken, cold, as the sun, yet again, krept down beneath the horizon. She’d felt exhausted, washed out, wrung dry and hollow. It was worse than when she had been in Spain. 

A maid. When she had been a maid. 

Harry had insisted on helping her dress and she had returned the favor. They’d been brought clothes, or rather, at Harry’s request, clothes left outside their door. Catalina tied his doublet in a neat bow and tucked it in. The lacing was too loose but she doubted he’d be wearing it for long. They both were two days overdue for a bath.

It would have been taken together should they have been in Spain. 

Harry had scented her before they had even gotten out of bed, kissing and nuzzling her neck, her jaw and her wrists. She had pulled him to his knees after they had broken their fast to scent her thighs,  _ so to speak _ , even though she’d known her heat was over. He wouldn’t have needed to if they’d been allowed to bathe together but apparently that was forbidden in England. 

At least the room was warm, she’d stroked the fire high to ward off the English chill. Catalina had already thrown on the clean smock she’d been brought and tied her skirt around her hips. She was wearing her kirtle, untied and hanging off her shoulders. Henry had already done her sleeves just as she had done his. She lifted his gold chain from where it had been set on the table and he dutifully bent his head to let her lay it upon his shoulders. There was barely a scruff of a ginger beard growing on his jaw and it certainly didn’t suit him. Catalina kissed his cheek regardless. 

For once Harry didn’t insist on receiving a proper kiss. He did tug her to him and kiss her head though, as seemed to be his habit whenever she was in his reach but she wasn’t in his arms. 

“Can you tie my kirtle?” She asked, already spinning around. His arms were still around her waist, holding so loosely that she could move, as if to highlight how tiny she was in comparison to the half grown puppy she’d found herself bonded to. He didn’t touch her as he reached for the laces of her kirtle and began to tie them. Catalina remembered how he’d kiss her shoulders and suck at her bonding gland until she pushed him away in discomfort. Henry had seemed obsessed with it when they were lying in the afterglow, his knot softening inside of her. 

_ Not as obsessed as he’d been with her mouth,  _ She thought and felt her cheeks turn red. Harry and her had likely committed enough sodomy in the past week that a thousand Hail Marys couldn’t spare them a single moment of purgatory. Well, Harry more than her. 

They’d be doing it again soon.

_ After their banns were published,  _ Catalina thought.  _ Perhaps they already had been and they could be wed before the cooks had begun dinner. _

Harry pushed her braided hair over her shoulder to finish lacing her up. He pulled the stays tight and tugged at her shift to keep it from poking out through the laces. Catalina heard him huff behind her and felt his breath on the back of her neck as he. It made her skin pebble up. She clasped her hands in front of her but then quickly released them. 

“All done,” Harry announced and kissed her squarely on the top of her head. Catalina stepped away from him. 

There was a sharp knock on the door before it banged open. Margaret Beaufort did not rush nor storm into Catalina’s room. She simply stood there and surveyed the room in front of her and its inhabitants. Catalina looked past the elderly woman and saw four Tudor men and two unfamiliar women. 

“Lady Grandmother,” Harry said.

“Henry,” My Lady the King’s Mother replied. Her mate trotted past Catalina to bow and kiss her hand. She physically bit her tongue to keep from caterwauling and demanding he come back  _ now _ . “You look well.”

“I am,” Henry replied. He glanced back at Catalina and his brow quickly knit in worry. The two women came through the door, slipping past Harry and curtsying. 

“Where are my ladies?” Catalina asked. Her voice was sharp and high pitched. More so than she’d ever heard it before.

“Quartered in the Wakefield Tower,” Margaret Beaufort replied. “My women will serve you well enough.”

“No,” Catalina barked, far too harshly even to her own ears. One of Beaufort’s women was already going over to her desk. “I will have my own ladies attend me.”

“There’s no need,” The ancient beta replied. “The King is impatient to see you.”

“His Highness has had to wait for six days to meet with me.” Catalina informed her. “He can wait another hour.”

“Let her have her ladies.” Harry said, eyes flicking over to the woman by Catalina’s desk and then back to his mate.

_ Do you think they know?  _ Catalina wondered.  _ How? _

_ Arthur.  _

“Harry,” Margaret began but was quickly and rudely cut off. 

“She’s been weak for the past few days.” Harry told her. “Let her have the women who know how to tend to her.”

Margaret looked at him with a sharp raised eyebrow which melted into a gentle smile. She patted Harry’s shoulder. 

“How very generous of you darling,” Margaret replied. Catalina’s eyes nearly popped out of her skull. 

_ The boy’s coddled,  _ Stafford had told her as they rode to London.  _ His mother and grandmother coddle him like he’s a sickly toddler.  _

Catalina had said nothing in response, wondering if it was because Arthur had been sent away to Wales when he was a baby. Isabella of Castille had kept all of her children close, releasing her brother from her nest only when she went on campaign and after he was married but keeping her daughters with her, even her widowed eldest daughter before the younger Isabella went back to Portugal.

To her death.

“I’ll send for them,” Margaret said and turned away, giving an order. 

“Out!” Catalina all but shouted at the two women. “Out now!” 

The two English women rushed out, one even leaving her desk drawer open. Harry slammed the door behind them and hurried back to Catalina. 

“What’s wrong?” He asked, putting his hands gently on her shoulders. 

“They have to know about the letters,” Catalina replied. 

“How?” Harry asked but his omega was already hurrying to her desk. Catalina didn’t get there. He snatched her back to him, manhandling her roughly so she was pressed to his body. “You don’t need to worry, Querida.”

Catalina stared up at him and narrowed her large eyes. 

_ He planned this,  _ Catalina remembered hearing through the door. She hadn’t quite made out whatever else was said nor did she quite recognize the voice at the time. 

_ Arthur,  _ She thought.  _ Poor man. What humiliation have we dealt to him? What enemy have I made? _

“Why did you write to me?” Catalina asked him. “To hurt your brother, no? To embarrass him? Because you were jealous?”

Harry stepped back from her, lips half open, eyes wide with something akin to horror. 

_ Did you think I wouldn’t wonder?  _ Catalina thought.  _ Did you think you could drag me into such a sin without a single complaint?  _

“Yes,” Harry croaked out and snapped his jaw shut. “At first but, then, later, as I came to know you it didn’t matter anymore- _ he didn’t matter anymore _ . When I told you that I wanted you by my side for the rest of my days; that you were my  _ home _ ; my greatest comfort and most beloved confidant-I meant it.”

“Yet our love is the fruit of a poisoned vine,” Catalina replied. “Your brother knows that someone wrote to me.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Harry stepped back toward her and cradled her face in his hands. “Catherine, he can’t do anything. He won’t do anything; my father and my grandmother won’t allow it.”

Catalina turned her head in his hands, looking away from his earnest face. He  _ believed  _ that. He actually  _ believed  _ his words. She pulled his hands away from her face but held them. Catalina thought for a moment, looking for something that would make this brat understand his foolishness. 

_Political suicide, _She thought. _The both of them had committed political suicide. What purpose does this serve?_

God was testing her. She would not fail.

“Do you remember the Duke of Clarence?” Catalina asked him. “Do you remember what became of him when he crossed his brother?”

“He led a rebellion,” Harry snorted, pulling his hands away from her. 

“And your grandfather, the King, hated him for it,” She replied. “Do you truly think Arthur, the future King, won’t hate you for this?”

Harry looked away, jaw clenched. She reached out and touched his chest, bringing him back to her. He was a fool but he was  _ her fool _ .

“You promised me a wedding night,” She murmured, looking down at her shoes. “You promised you’d give me children. You promised me they’d grow up safe. Not in a war camp or under the shadow of the Tower.”

“I’ll give you that.” Harry said, as he cupped her cheeks to tilt her head up. “I promise. We’ll get married when your ladies arrive. Espousal de praesenti or, rather, per verba de futuro subsequente copula.”

“Will it hold?” Catalina asked. She was to have been married in the greatest church of the entire country, in front of the entire city of London. Her union had been sanctioned by the Pope, agreed on several times over and sanctified in front of God. 

_ This  _ was none of those things. They needed a dispensation-two actually. Her dowry would need to be renegotiated and that was if she wasn’t disowned. Catalina doubted that would happen but Beaufort might demand it. 

“I was to be a Cardinal,” Harry shrugged. “In England, you can make oaths after a heat rather than go to church. It will hold up in an ecclesiastical court if tried but more importantly a legal one. Arthur won’t be able to bastardize our children if he was daft enough to try.”

“It’s the same in Spain,” Catalina replied. She wrung her hands in front of her and pursed her lips. “And I’d rather find a way to keep him from trying.” 

_ Or make him look like a madman when he did.  _ Catalina thought and spun away from Harry once again, remembering her original goal. 

“We need to burn the letters,” Catalina told him. Harry let out a squawk bordering on some kind of a trill of displeasure. Catalina ground her teeth to keep from chattering back at him. She opened her quill box and popped up the bottom, careful not to spill her inkwell. Harry slipped up behind her and watched as she pulled his letters out of the box. 

“Catherine,” Harry said. “Don’t.”

He put his hand on her back. Catalina took a breath and let herself enjoy the touch. She turned slightly, stood up on her toes and nuzzled along his chin. Harry put both of his hands on her hips.

“Why?” She murmured against his throat. Harry shook his head. She watched his Adam's apple bob as he swallowed. 

“Alright, do it,” He said. “But I won’t burn your dresses.” 

Catalina dropped her head against his collar bone. She had sent him two of her nightgowns with blackwork that had been sewn by her own hand. She’d worn them during two heats each before she sent them, folded up so tightly in tiny parcels with a dried pomegranate peel atop them. 

“That is wise. Cut them to strips and throw them into the privy,” She told him, knowing full well what he meant. “Cloth smells when it burns.”

“Catherine,” He protested.

“Please,” She replied, cutting him off as she reached out and grasped his arm. “ _ Please _ , Harry.”

“I’ll expect new ones before the weeks out, Summertime.” He gave in. 

Catalina smiled at her mate, lover, alpha, soon to be husband,  _ brat.  _

“I’ll sew and scent your shirts if you’d like,” She offered. Harry’s cheeks promptly went nearly as red as his hair and he grinned. 

“You drive a hard bargain,” He chuckled. “An awful bargain.”

_ You, beloved alpha,  _ Catalina thought.  _ Have the tact of a lawyer. _

Catalina kissed the side of his throat in gratitude and hopped away, over to the fireplace with her letters. Carefully, she started feeding their thirty-five letters into the flames, watching as Harry’s words were devoured. 

_ Your Highness, Infanta Catalina, I am writing…. _

_ Your Highness, Infanta Catalina, My Lady wife… _

_ Your Highness, My Lady Wife, Catalina, there is much to tell you…. _

_ Your Highness, Catalina, might I call you Catherine? _

_ Would that I could see your land of seemingly endless summer but unfortunately I have not the freedom to flee from the winter into your... _

_ Catherine, My Lady Wife, I’ve finished the Decameron not a moment ago and felt compelled to write to you in thanks for your reccom….. _

_ I fear that England is much different than your wondrous Spain so it will be nothing but... _

_ My Lady Wife, I discovered the oddest horse recently. A massive brute of a creature at fifteen hands. I have not yet asked of your Andalusian…. _

_ You are the sweetest and gentlest…. _

_ ...but your father’s Ambassador says that your hair is lighter than your portrait shows. Might I ask for…. _

_ My beloved spouse, my warmth and my only desire. The shock of your gift was so great that only the joy of receiving it could overwhelm it…. _

_ Catherine, My Lovely Spouse, My Lady of the Desert, I write out of a desperate concern. I have not heard a word of you for nearly….. _

_ Catherine, Lovely Wife, Darling Omega, I am grieved to hear of the severity of your heat and its impact on your health…. _

_ The night was clear so I was able to see Orion but it was quite cold and I found myself wishing for the warmth of your body….  _

_ ...would that I could come and tend to you myself during your fever days…. _

_ Catalina, you are my summertime and my only desire. I crave word of you and am always overjoyed to hear of your preparations for our impending arrival in England and our longed for.... _

_ I wish that I might meet you on the coast, gather you in my arms and bring you to the church still in your traveling….  _

_ My dearest Catherine, my Summertime. Your gift is even more welcome than your past one but I fear you will find an exhausted man in your bed for the scent of your body that still lingers on your nightgowns...  _

_ My darling Summertime, my favorite sin, my passion and precious, beloved Omega. I say Mass in thanks every day  _ _ that I am to become the owner of such a beautiful angel… _

_ Princess Summertime, faery princess, darling wife, beloved, most precious…. _

_ Catherine, I heard of your fever not an hour ago from Mendoza. Please… _

_ …..daughter of the Most Catholic Monarchs are you certain you are not some changeling? Some nymph? No, I think you are a heathen... _

There wasn’t even a knock on the door before it swung open. Catalina picked up the poker and stirred the fire, trying to pull ash over her burning letters. She crumpled the last one up her sleeve, got up and glanced at Harry. He’d seen what she’d done.

Lina and Rosa were curtsying to her with the door open behind them. 

“Shut the door please,” Catalina told them. 

They took their oaths in front of the two women, hands on Catalina’s bible. She knew the words she was to say in front of the altar and found that they sounded different then she’d thought. Catalina had imagined how she would fill her lungs with air and project her joyous response over a large abbey to allow every man, woman and child within to hear the oaths of their future queen. She had expected to have to fight to keep a smile off her face. Instead she just wanted to thump her head against Harry’s chest, wrap her arms around him and ask him to pet her hair or kiss his neck. Catalina had expected that her husband-to-be was well dressed in gold and cream. Harry was wearing a dark blue doublet that complemented his brown eyes and red hair. She expected Arthur would be wearing a circlet. Harry’s hair was an absolute, uncombed, curly mess. Catalina wouldn’t have kissed Arthur. She slipped her tongue between Harry’s lips and cupped the back of his head in her hands. 

The only problem was that their rings did not fit. Catalina’s hands were not particularly small, at least in her opinion. Harry’s hands were simply abnormally large. Lina had ended up rummaging through Catalina’s jewelry box to find a ring that barely fit her thumb and somehow fit on his ring finger. None of his fit her at all except for the little, very plain, little silver signet on his smallest finger. There was a little, prancing English lion on it. Catalina looked over it carefully and then recognized that it was the signet that he’d used to seal their letters. 

“It suits you,” Harry mused, smiled and kissed her hand. 

“Smugness does  _ not _ suit you.” Catalina admonished. Harry raised his eyebrows. He did not protest. He knew she was right.

_ You don’t care do you?  _ Catalina thought.  _ Careless. Yes, that describes you rather well.  _

* * *

When it was over, she called for a physician to examine her. It was what was done after all, even if Catherine didn’t like the grey haired man poking around between her legs. She also disliked the fact that Harry had been pulled out of the room for it. She would have preferred he sit with her, hold her hand. 

_ How ridiculous,  _ Catherine thought.  _ It is not done in England. _

But it was done in Spain. Her father had all but waited on her mother hand and foot when she was recovering from her heats, fussing over her before, after a week, he retreated from their quarters back to his own as was the custom. He’d nested for several years with Catherine and the rest of her siblings, of course, but other than that he only visited. He simply handed his mistresses and their unborn babies off to other alphas before the children were born. 

Catalina had realised when she was eight that, in many cases, the omegas had never even met their new mates before they went through their first hot flash, played off as a heat. It was simply not done and also  _ hid their pregnancies.  _ Very clever of her father. 

_ Strange that these Englishmen allow Alphas to wander about where they are not wanted _ , Catherine thought grumpily.  _ But forbid them entry when they are needed. _

“I would recommend you abstain from intercourse for a week or so, your highness,” The physician told her. Catalina nodded in agreement and flinched as she sat up, closing her legs. She could feel Lina’s eyes boring into her from behind as the Moorish woman approached her.

“Thank you,” Catalina said to the doctor. The beta bowed and hurried out of the door. 

“Infanta,” Lina said, her voice worried. “Your dress is laced backwards.”

Catalina reached behind her and felt that one side of her kirtle was higher than the other. At least she now knew Harry had never had to help a woman dress before. 

“Rosa, can you fix it?” She asked. Catalina scooted over to the edge of her bed, tugging her skirt along with her. The youngest of the three women hurried over and undid Harry’s work. 

_ This is God’s will,  _ Catalina reminded herself. She appreciated her friend’s concern but this was the path he had chosen for her and she would follow his will with an open heart.  _ Had Bathsheba thought the same thing?  _ She wondered. That was when her door banged open. 

Catalina whipped around as Rosa shrieked in horror. Half a dozen men stormed into her chamber with Margaret Beaufort stalking in behind them. Catalina frantically held her skirt over her bare thighs and backed into a corner, trying to hide her calves, knees and the part of her thighs not covered by her smock. 

“What is this?!” Catalina shouted. “How dare you?! Get out!”

She watched as the men began to open her trunks and tear out her clothes. She felt her cheeks start to flush in a mixture of anger and shame. Rosa grabbed the back of her dress and frantically started to re-lace it. 

_ They want the letters,  _ Catalina thought and composed herself, keeping her skirt over her body and stepping in farther back into the corner. She felt the crumpled corners of the last letter pressing into the soft spot of her wrist. 

The same spot that Harry had bit two days ago. It wasn’t bruised. 

“You know very well why I am here,” Margaret Beaufort ordered. “Where are they?”

“What right do you have to even be in my room?” Catalina responded. Lina stepped into her line of sight and nodded her head twice. 

Catalina considered trilling in terror. Or yowl and yowl and  _ yowl _ until Harry came running. She clenched her jaw and rolled back her shoulders, standing as tall as her tiny body would allow her to be. She watched as a man began to rummage through her desk. 

“Every right, your highness,” Margaret arched an eyebrow as she spoke. “Men and women accused of treason must be searched, must they not?”

“Send your men out or I will walk through this Tower in nothing but my shift.” Catalina replied, half on impulse and fully knowing what a scandal that would cause. 

“That is not my concern,” Margaret informed her.

_ Everything in this country is your concern,  _ Catalina thought. 

“It will be when I inform Ambassador Mendoza that you forbid me from bathing,” Catalina told her firmly. “And your grandson, my mate_, _that you forced me to bare _my body _to a dozen men.”

“You’re fully dressed.” Margaret scoffed. Catalina moved her skirt to the side, exposing her legs. 

“My dress is unlaced,” Catalina replied gently. “And I am only half dressed. I doubt that he’d know much of a difference at the moment.”

Rosa promptly finished lacing. Margaret Beaufort’s eyebrows crawled up her forehead. She truly had an impressive way of making a look of disbelief intimidating. 

_ You will have proof of nothing.  _ Catalina thought.  _ I will not be dragged from this room and named Delilah nor Bathsheba nor Jezebel, no. They will call me Leah; an omega tossed into a bed not her own.  _

_ But there will be no Rachel.  _

“Found something, my lady,” The guard at her desk called out. Catalina looked to see him pulling all of her letters out of their box. Letters from her sisters; letters from her mother and her father from years gone by when they had traveled from her; letters from her brother before he had passed. 

No letters from Harry. 

“My Lady the King’s mother,” Catalina said, plump lips stretched into a smile. “I will expect those returned to me by the end of the day.”

* * *

Catalina bound her hair up in a series of braids, baring her marked, bruised throat to the world before she left her rooms, under the supervision of two of Maragaret Beaufort’s ladies with a worried Rosa and Lina hovering nearby. She had still not bathed deliberately to smell like Harry. It was a statement that made heads turn when she walked through the corridors to the King’s private dining room. The court in Spain would have known what had happened by the following morning. 

_ Word probably travels more quickly in England,  _ Catalina thought.  _ I doubt they have much more to do than gossip in this frigid place _ . 

It was cold, colder than even the blackest days of winter had been in her homeland and it was only November. She knew very well the cold would worsen before the spring came and spring was still a long way off. Harry had warned her that the snows wouldn’t come for another month but then would last into February, growing coldest after New Years. Catalina found herself wishing for her cape, but that would defeat the purpose of her exposed neck. In Spain it would be covered. In Spain she would not need to walk through the court at the order of the King. 

Her father would never have demanded such a thing. 

Then again, no noble born omega would have been made to travel as their heat approached. Catherine should have tantrumed, should have shouted, should have barred herself in her room but that would not have been God’s will. Harry was the mate and the husband God himself had chosen for her. 

_ Bathsheba had not asked for David to summon her yet she had gone and found herself in love with him.  _ Catalina thought.  _ And God had blessed them with Soloman.  _

Catalina was made to wait barely a moment before she was allowed into the dining room. The King was not there and in his place, not Margaret Beaufort but a blonde haired woman in a red dress. She had Arthur’s eyes and Harry’s cheek bones. 

“Your highness,” Catalina said as she curtsied to Elizabeth of York. 

Set on the table in front of the Queen of England was three plates of food, two folded nightgowns and a pile of folded papers. Catalina clasped her hands, if only to feel Harry’s thirty-fifth letter dig into her wrist. 

She’d had no opportunity to throw it in the fire. 

“Thank you, Lady Howard, Cecily,” Elizabeth said. “You may leave us.”

Catalina managed not to glance over her shoulder at the two women. The shorter of the two had the same eyes as the omega sitting in front of her. Elizabeth, Queen of England lifted one hand and pointed to the nearest chair.

“Sit,” She ordered. Her voice was flat to the point of being monotone but Catalina obeyed. She pulled her own chair out and sat down. The movement tugged at her bonding gland, making it ache.

“I assume you were taught how to serve yourself,” Elizabeth said. Catalina proceeded to pull a plate of apples and pork toward her, forcing herself to not look at the ornate blackwork on the collars of her night dresses. 

“I was,” She replied, looking over at her new mother in law. “Were you?” 

Something in the woman’s face snapped even as it seemed as still as a death mask. Elizabeth hand shot out and she tried to grab Catalina by the chin. Catalina caught her wrist, heart leaping in her throat. It was an instinctual reaction. 

She’d slept with a knife by her bed since she could remember and had known how to use it since she was six. Stab. Spin. Cut the back of his knees and when she got taller aim for the pit or slash his throat. Her father had had her play with balls as a child to, in hindsight, hone her reflexes. When Catalina had asked him about it he’d told her that it had been the same game he played. 

She would teach it to her own children.  _ Harry’s  _ children.

Catalina tossed the Queen of England’s arm away from her and openly glared at her mother in law, heart hammering in her chest. Elizabeth let out a breathy laugh, tossing her head back. 

“Do you know what you’ve done, Catherine?” Elizabeth asked her with a wide smile. Arthur’s smile. “Do you know what misery you’ve wrought?”

“It is the will of God,” Catalina replied. The color drained from the other omega’s already pale cheeks but she smiled. 

“Will it be God’s will when the Scots overrun our borders?” The Queen of England asked. “When your father and mother declare war? Do you know what was done to bring you here Catherine?”

“A dowry was sent,” She replied. “A treaty was signed. It may hold if you can make my parents see reason and I can assure you that they are reasonable people. Their own match was made in similar circumstances.”

_ My father lied to my mother and guided her to bed, corrupted by his lust.  _ Catalina did not say.  _ And they made such a mighty match that Christendom bows to them.  _

“Your mother ordered the execution of the Earl of Warwick and Perkin Warbeck,” Elizabeth replied. “She had my cousin murdered in exchange for  _ you _ .” 

Her belly curdled in horror. 

“That is on your conscience,” Catalina snapped even as her throat closed up. “Not my mother’s and not on mine.”

“You are the one who has thrown away that sacrifice,” Elizabeth of York continued. 

“My marriage is God’s will,” Catalina replied.

“You are not  _ wed, _ ” The Queen replied. Her face was still pale but her eyes were cold with fury. She reached out and picked up one of Catalina’s nightgowns. “Despite what this might mean in Spain.”

_ And here it begins,  _ Catalina thought.  _ I should have planned better. Harry and I should have planned better. _

“It means nothing,” Catalina replied. “They were a gift for Arthur. I believed he was the man I was writing to. Harry sent me nothing to hint that I was being tricked.”

“These were found in my son’s bed.” Elizabeth informed Catalina bluntly. Then she picked up a letter. “And this was in his bedside drawer.”

Catalina snatched the letter from her and her heart kicked up in her chest. It was the last letter she had sent him, exceptionally explicit and unashamedly explicit. 

_ Arthur, longed for husband,  _

_ I had the good fortune of reading your letter just before bed. The idea of your hands running up my thighs would have caused me much distraction should it have arrived earlier. I think about how your hands would feel beneath my knees, parting and lifting them as you promised, before you lie between them, splitting me open for the first time. I am told you are tall so I wonder at what comfort I will gain from being held in your arms, lazy from pleasure. When I lie in the bitter loneliness of the night, I imagine your faceless frame crawling atop me, peeling my sheets, my dress from my body, lifting me off my bed and carrying me to yours so that when dawn comes, I am made your true wife.  _

“Do you deny you wrote it?” Elizabeth of York asked. Catalina looked up at the Queen of England.

“No,” She said. “But I deny having knowledge that it was in your younger son’s possession.”

“You think I believe you?” Elizabeth replied. “What proof do you have?”

“Why should you not?” Catalina fired back. “Do I address my letters to Harry, Duke of York? No, they are to the Prince of Wales.”

“Letters burn,” Elizabeth replied. “Like yours did.”

Catalina wrung her hands beneath the table. God had given her more wisdom than most men, she knew that very well but this woman and Beaufort were truly fools if they thought to threaten her. 

“Are you truthfully so reckless to accuse me of treason?” Catalina asked. 

“Your maidenhead was bought with the blood of my kinsmen,” Elizabeth snapped back, her face finally, finally reddening with fury. 

_ Kinsmen?  _ Catalina thought.  _ Oh, God no. _

“And it has been delivered.” Catalina reminded her. It had. Just to the wrong Prince.  _ _

_ At least we haven’t had to step over Uriah’s corpse yet,  _ She thought.  _ Arthur’s corpse.  _

* * *

_ My love, my dearest spouse, my summertime,  _ Arthur- _ Harry- _ had begun every letter. Catalina pulled out the one she’d kept from the fire before she’d changed for bed; finally left alone with Lina and Rosa. Her door had then been locked from the outside.

_ Why?  _ Catalina thought desperately.  _ Why did you do this Harry? Why did you use me as part of your game, you stupid brat?  _

She pulled her chair from where it had been pushed beneath her desk. It scraped loudly against the floor, grating on Catalina’s ears. She set the folded piece of paper onto the desk and crumpled it between her fist.  _ It needs to be burnt,  _ Catalina thought,  _ This sin needs to be cleansed from my body with fire.  _ The fire itself crackled merrily in it’s grate, a mere two steps away, as if it were a hound, eager for table scraps. 

Burning it would not help her cause. That had already been completely destroyed but, still, she was relieved that this particular letter had not been lost to her. 

_ My love, my dearest spouse, my summertime, my sweetness, my strength, my happiness, my love and my every breath. My Aphrodite. My nymph. My wise tutor, my patient pupil. My fleet footed doe. My pomegranate.  _ It had arrived the day before she set sail for England. Catalina had kept it under her pillow for the first three days of her voyage before packing it away, unable to go a morning or night without reading it.  _ My most longed for companion. My peace and my lady of war, my only desire.  _

_ I burn for you.  _

Catalina’s skin prickled yet again at those words, heat pooling in her cheeks, throat, chest and between her legs. She felt like she was being cracked open, her body laid bare to the eyes of the world, despite her solitude in her room. The night she had first read this letter it had made her wet with hope and want before the shame of her lust for this yet unmet Arthur made itself known. Now the shame and hope had been burned out of her, replaced by a terrible grief. She wanted  _ Harry _ . 

_ My dark moon and my morning sun. My witch. You are surely a witch, my lady wife, for I am bewitched by you. I smell you scent in my gardens, in my rooms, in my chapel when I try to pray. I can even smell you at my table where I sit, supper after supper, in front of my untouched plate for you have drained away all other appetites Querida. I hear the whisper of my name on the  _ _ Southeast _ _ wind when it roars up from Spain and I know it to be your curse. You drive me to madness, Omega mine. When I pray, all I can do is plead to God for your speedy arrival, lest I abandon my duties and go to Spain to fetch you myself. I cannot write unless it is to you. I cannot read unless it is some book you have mentioned and then I will devour it in one sleepless night. I am, in fact, grateful for those nights. My most beloved torturer, I find no true rest when I sleep. Your magic makes me crawl to my confessor every morning, begging for the penance I have earned during your nightly visits. My virgin bride and lusty mistress both, I dream of kissing your pretty breasts, of your mouth upon my neck and the feeling of being buried inside of you. I feel your hands upon my skin as I lie in my bed and see your blue eyes in the darkness. You are so very delicate, so very delicate in my arms yet more savage than a wolf when you lie on top of me. I dream of the taste of your pleasure, Catherine, and of your lips but I cannot decide which is sweeter. _

Catalina should have known the moment she met Arthur.

“Saint’s Blood.” Catalina murmured to herself, trying out the curse on her tongue. Arthur had looked at her with the kind of nervousness that only the most uneducated nun would possess. He’d looked at her with something akin to shock, his nostrils flaring as if he’d never smelt an unperfumed omega before. 

Perhaps he hadn’t. The omegas, alphas and betas of the English Court mingled in it’s gardens and during feasts filling the air with a thousand perfumes, or so she had been told. In Spain, it was considered disgusting if an Omega perfumed him or herself with something less divine than the scent of their Alpha. But in England, apparently, according to the gift My Lady, The King’s Mother had given her the day she arrived, it was considered modest, just as they considered it modest to have omegas room with betas on the floor just above the alphas. In Spain omegas had been allotted their own buildings, each given their own room with not a beta nor an alpha in sight to disturb them. Any mingling was done 

Catalina found she was already beginning to care very little for the old harridan's opinion of her.  _ These letters  _ would now make her little more than a whore in her own mother’s eyes. 

Catalina put her head in her hands and fought back a sobb.  _ Harry,  _ She thought,  _ Harry, you cruel, desperate fool. I would have had you without even knowing your station, without even knowing your name or your love of horses, astronomy, clothes, Bordeaux wine, gold rings with red stones; your love of Italian art, Ovid, stories of your grandfather, medicine, stag hunting. You promised me a set of antlers and a brace of conies every day during my first summer in England. How did you intend to do that? How on God’s Good Earth did you intend to do that? _

_ You could have kept me, you fool. I could have had you.  _

Catalina knew she would have come to love him if they’d fallen into each other without their correspondence. They wouldn’t have to be pulled apart. 

_ I long for the day of the completion of your curse, my wife. I long for the day you completely possess me, claim me and break me to your will. I long for the day you are mine in more than name. As your promised arrival draws closer and closer my fever for you rises to the point of madness. There are mornings when I wake to the hallucination of you lying beside me, wrapped in our furs and silk. My wife, my omega, my Princess Summertime, come with as much haste as you can. Please I beg of you. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, here’s this beast. Gag, Catherine was hard to write. At least until I started reading about her. She was smarter than Henry, very cunning, very pious, very well educated, stubborn as a bull, loyal to her family and extremely politically astute, though most of those character traits were probably formed while she was stuck in England after Arthur died. Basically, listen to your new wife, Harry, she knows what she’s doing!  
Who am I kidding? These kids are completely screwed.


End file.
